Billy Preston, often considered the Fifth Beatle, died on 6 June at age 59. The American soul musician was a long term friend of The Beatles and was the only person to receive joint credit on a Beatles single ("Get Back"). Preston was an Apple Records recording artist and he performed at George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh and at the Concert for George, both energetic and memorable performances. He also played regularly with The Rolling Stones and a number of other artists.
New article classification system, for our use and for Wikipedia 1.0. Very important and we need editor involvement. How can you help? Rate articles! It's easy:
After deciding what grade it should have, modify the invocation of {{WPBeatles}} on the talk page to add parms. The template itself gives you the parameters to use. For example, change {{WPBeatles}} to {{WPBeatles|B|Low}} if you think it's a low-importance, B-class article. Save your changes and make sure the talk page is now showing the ratings.
Click on the link in the template to edit the /comments subpage and explain why you rated the article the way you did. Don't forget to sign with ~~~~. Save that too.
Want to stay up on new project developments? Watchlist all of the WikiProject pages plus The Beatles and each of the 4 members, to get a feel for what's happening. Also monitor and regularly review Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/The Beatles articles by quality log. If an article is listed on there as "added", go check the article's history. If it's new since the Project began add it to the Project Log as a new article and up the counter by one :)
It was a bit of a struggle to get this month's newsletter done, as we did it without a lead editor. Hopefully, next month you'll jump in and be our lead editor. Big news is that WP:1.0 is coming along nicely and our article classification system has changed to conform to it.
If you've just joined, add your name to the Participants section of Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles. You'll get a mention in the next issue of the Newsletter and get it delivered as desired. Also, please include your own promotions and awards in future issues. Don't be shy!
Lastly, this is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue (Issue 004 – August 2006). Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
As the project is currently just starting, our more experienced editors are working on the project infrastructure, classifying articles, and listing/assessing red links. Your assistance is welcome. If you would prefer to just edit - and why wouldn't you? - we have a choice selection of red links to turn blue and articles to clean! Now let's get busy.
Project: Add {{WPBeatles}} to the talk pages of all Beatles-related articles. Send a newsletter to members, canvas for new members, and coordinate tasks. Enter articles classed as stubs into this list (under To Expand) and also list articles needing cleaning and other work here.
If you complete one of these tasks, please remove it from the list and add your achievement to the project log.
Want to help on next month's newsletter? Don't want to receive these in future? Don't want it subst'd next time? – It's all here.
